


Aphrodite

by Blackcat413



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: F/F, spoilers for both books
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 12:41:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29576289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackcat413/pseuds/Blackcat413
Summary: "She could have been talking to Loveday. She felt Loveday in her arms, the same as she held Gideon now: so hauntingly similar. Her eyes burned in Cytherea’s skull. She wicked the tears away as soon as they arose, feeling as though she were shucking herself like a clam. A whole, cleaved in half."The avulsion trial, from Cytherea's perspective.
Relationships: Cytherea the First/Gideon Nav, Mentioned Cytherea/Loveday
Comments: 10
Kudos: 33





	Aphrodite

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to the people’s tomb discord

“No,” said Cytherea. “Oh, no no no. Stay awake.”

Gideon the Ninth, collapsed on the stone steps with her head pillowed in Cytherea’s lap, was shrieking.

She’d never felt it herself, but she knew the furor of pain Gideon was experiencing: the judder and jolt of thalergy draining from her soul, the phantom sucking that wrung all the blood to the outside of her body. She felt it with the Lyctoral sense, Gideon’s body going haywire—Cytherea’s awareness extended to every hard pump of blood and uncontrollable twitch, down to Gideon’s floundering tongue fused to the roof of her bloody mouth. Her face paint ran, hood fallen askew, but Cytherea couldn’t even see her skin for all the blood sweat. Her seafoam dress was a Gideon-shaped bloodstain.

“Oh, Gideon,” she breathed. “You poor baby.” She tried to wipe some of the blood-clumped hair away from the girl’s sightless eyes. She was an animal storm of pure agony, roiling and bucking mindlessly. 

Harrowhark, some meters away, stumbled through the entropy field. Though stumbling wasn’t the word, exactly; she walked with carefully measured steps, but she fell onto each foot with her entire body weight, heavy and wobbling—so graceless and unnatural it could hardly be called walking. 

“It’s alright,” Cytherea said, and she had to be firm to be heard over Gideon’s ear-splitting pain, the ceaseless scream.”You’re all right. Gideon, Gideon…you’re so  _ young.” _

She swallowed the lump in her throat, picturing Loveday’s determined face. Gideon—beautiful Gideon, who submitted herself to avulsion without a second thought—would give herself up. She would die for her necromancer because she believed she had to. She would die for her necromancer if Harrowhark only asked. And Gideon, bright and sweet, did not deserve to become a battery.

Cytherea’s world narrowed to just her and the girl writhing in her lap. She tucked back the riot of orange hair and nearly leant in and whispered her every secret, everything she’d ever known in ten thousand years. Instead she said: “Don’t give yourself away. Do you know, it’s not worth it…none of this is worth it, at all. It’s cruel. It’s  _ so  _ cruel. You’re so young—and vital—and alive. Gideon, you’re all right…remember this,” her voice hardened, “and don’t let anyone do it to you ever again.”

She stayed close, soft words in Gideon’s ear, her breath a whisper away. “I’m sorry. We take so much. I’m so sorry.”

Gideon was a convulsion of limbs, starting and stopping. She flung about, a spasming rampage; Cytherea held her as close as she could, wrangling the poor girl. She touched the jaw, the forehead, the bridge of the nose. Mixed with ashy greasepaint, she wiped away what blood she could.

She spared a furtive glance to Harrowhark in the galvanic haze of the entropy field. She stood in front of the puzzle box, naked but alive. “She’s all the way across,” she said to Gideon, not without a tinge of urgency. “She’s made it to the box.”

She called out to Harrow, more for Gideon than anything, “Can you see the trick of it, Reverend Daughter? There  _ is  _ a trick, isn’t there? Gideon, I am going to put my hand over your mouth. She needs to think.”

Gideon bit down on the hand the instant it covered her mouth. Cytherea hissed, a knee-jerk reaction. “Ow, you feral…!” It drew blood, but the flesh of her hand re-knitted immediately, and she didn’t think Gideon noticed at all. Cytherea wouldn’t expect her to, swimming in the torture of thalergy drain. But it muffled her screaming long enough for Harrow to think, and Cytherea felt her thinking, felt her body struggling along with Gideon’s.

She kept talking, an anchor. “There she goes…perhaps they thought that if it were easy to obtain, someone could finish the demonstration some other way. It’s got to be foolproof, Gideon…I know that.”

And she did know. It was Mercy’s trial, and Mercy had not set it up so that anyone who loved their cavalier would go through with it. Cytherea had watched her working on it, all that time ago…

“I wish it were me. I wish I were up there. She’s got the box open…I wonder…yes, she’s worked it out! I was afraid she’d break the key…” Harrow was so far away. “Good girl. Oh, good girl.”

Gideon whined, a high keen between Cytherea’s fingers. A splendid gurgle, and then those eyes locking onto her face with dim recognition. Those beautiful golden eyes, the ones that had belonged to Alecto and no other. Those eyes, the proof of Lyctoral failure. A lance of pain through her heart, sharper than Gideon’s scream, that it had all been for nothing.

But that was why she was here, wasn’t it? Not to fix it—she could never fix it—but to stop it from happening again?

“She’s got it, Gideon! And I’ve got you…Gideon of the golden eyes. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault…I’m so sorry. Stay with me. Stay with me.” She could have been talking to Loveday. She felt Loveday in her arms, the same as she held Gideon now: so hauntingly similar. Her eyes burned in Cytherea’s skull. She wicked the tears away as soon as they arose, feeling as though she were shucking herself like a clam. A whole, cleaved in half.

Gideon’s seizures became trembles. Her screams became whimpers. Cytherea cast a desperate glance to Harrow, halfway across the field. She was bowed nearly to the floor, and it shimmered violently. Electrically. The static raced back and forth across her knees; the girl was on the brink. And Gideon, with Alecto’s—no, with  _ John’s  _ eyes—was fading.

“She’s stumbled,” Cytherea said, detachedly. A little more, and it would consume them both. Perhaps it would be better that way, she thought, nearly closing her eyes. But Gideon threw herself further into the crinkle of Cytherea’s dress, pressed whimpering to her stomach, and Harrow got up. She felt a spike in the feed of thalergy flowing from Gideon to Harrowhark. It was personal, like watching someone’s bones break.

“She’s up. Gideon, Gideon, she’s up.” She gripped Gideon’s shoulders, entreating. “Just a little bit more. Darling, you’re fine. Poor baby…” She kissed that handsome girl’s forehead, lips pressed to the wet red of her blood. She swept her up, caressing her cheeks, holding her close. “Don’t. It’s very easy to die, Gideon the Ninth…you just let it happen. It’s so much worse when it doesn’t.” That was true. A myriad of pain stretched like a shadow behind her. “But come on, chicken. Not right now, and not yet.”

Harrow was nearly there now. Just a few steps and it would be over. Gideon fell completely loose, limp in Cytherea’s thin hands. “Gideon, you magnificent creature. Keep going. Feed it to her…she’s nearly made it. Gideon?”

Her eyes were drifting closed, the whites bright against her bloody skin. Cytherea tapped her cheek. “Gideon, eyes open. Stay put. Stay with me.” The eyes cracked open again, a sliver of gold between the eyelids. 

Harrowhark passed the threshold of the field. She sucked a deep, rattling breath, her skin wisping steam; she looked impossibly small and weak. “Gideon?  _ Gideon! _ ” Harrow called for her cavalier, taking halting steps to where Cytherea sat curled around her body.

This roused the poor girl, who took a long look at Harrow, rasped, “Ha-ha. First time you didn’t call me Griddle,” and then passed out, quite alive.

Cytherea was more relieved than she would’ve liked.


End file.
